Who has time to sing? When you have a baby, especially your first one, you feel like you are constantly being bombarded by things you must do to help my baby thrive. Who has the time to fit it all in to the sometimes very stressful job of parenting. The great thing about singing is it is cheap, you don’t need any handbooks or training to do it, and it can be your savior at 2:00am when your gorgeous cherub has turned into something not so gorgeous. In those times you will do just about anything to calm your baby; a silly dance or popping your baby in the pram and walking around the block.

 

Sometimes singing a song in a lullaby style of slow, low, calming melody when the words are something like “please go to sleep, I have an early morning meeting, and my eyes are so heavy I think I could fall asleep standing up at this point” will do the trick.  Researchers have investigated the impact that singing has on babies in particular, but that also measured the impact on the parent. What they found is that it is possible to literally sing away the blues. Singing has a very strong connection to the normalization of cortisol levels and can also promote the production of happy hormones like dopamine and endorphins. We think that we are singing to our child for their benefit, or out of desperation at 2:00am, but we are also accessing a very natural way to moderate our own stress.